Books and Polka Dots

"How To Be a Woman" Caitlin Moran (Ebury Press)

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:46:00 +0000

So being a Literature student paradoxically means I have very little time to read books which are not on my course. Even over the Christmas holidays, reading anything other than next term’s books feels a bit naughty, like I am scoffing all the cookies just before a nutritious meal. I want a healthy balanced diet just as much as I enjoy Shakespeare and Woolf … but I also really like cookies.

However, there was one book under the tree that absolutely refused to go in the “When I have more time” pile. Caitlin Moran’s How To Be a Woman, to stick with the food analogy, is not just any cookie. It’s one of those large novelty cookies you can get iced for your friend’s birthday, and then it looks so good you start having intense daydreams about it: it’s so tempting; maybe if you just have a crumb, no one will notice … and soon you’ve accidentally eaten the whole thing yourself.

For a young liberal feminist living in the 21^st Century, Caitlin Moran just gets it right. Her feminism is not exclusive or hypocritical, it does not get caught up in its own bubble of issues that no one else really understands or cares about … it is very simple. Her rule to identify sexism (“Are the boys doing it?”) is easy to remember and makes perfect sense: if a situation would be different for a man, it is deemed “patriarchal bullshit”. There is no concept of “us and them” in Moran’s ideal world, no gender is privileged, and we are all just “the guys”. Getting along, working together, helping each other out. It’s very simple. How has it ever not been that simple?

Helpfully, Moran is also hilarious. Using her own experiences to talk about current issues such as body image, porn, sex, motherhood, abortion and Katie Price vs. Lady Gaga, she is able to be honest, practical, funny and serious. The retelling of the teenage discussion with her sister about what to call their vaginas are some of the funniest pages of a book I’ve ever read (“We both know that Rolf Harris is not the answer we are looking for”). Her honest discussion of her reasons for her abortion, while more serious, is written with the same dedication to absolute practicality and honesty (“I can’t agree with a society that would force me to bet on how much I could love under duress”).

Reading How To Be a Woman was fantastic. I actually got two copies for Christmas, but decided that this was a good thing, because more people could borrow it at once. My stepmum is currently reading one, and so is my brother. Absolutely deserving the Galaxy book of the year for 2011, I will recommend this book to everyone, anyone, insistently, until everybody just stops talking to me.

probablystilladoreyou

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 11:36:13 +0100

probablystilladoreyou

"The Vesuvius Club" Mark Gatiss (Simon & Schuster)

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:57:00 +0100

I found this book amongst the large collection in my family’s living room whilst packing for the Moving Day which never seems to happen - and I couldn’t believe I’d never found it before. Everything about it seemed perfect: A story about an Edwardian dandy and secret agent running around London… written by Mark Gatiss of BBC’s ‘The League of Gentleman’, ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Sherlock’, no less? What more could anyone want from a summertime holiday book?

It delivered from the first page, of course. Lucifer Box’s adventures, whether assassinating threats to the crown, solving mysteries or choosing the correct dress for an evening party, are always exciting and consistently hilarious. True, in keeping with Edwardian vernacular, the hero is a rake and a cad through and through. There is no denying that Lucifer Box is completely shallow and totally outrageous. But, of course, he is also completely charming and totally seductive.

Written in first person, Lucifer’s narration is light, easy and full of humour - casually revealing huge plot developments in the same offhand manner in which he discusses his waistcoats, or makes obscure references to intriguing past cases (“foiling… an attempted assassination of the Prince of Wales by means of a poisoned meringue” was one of his “first triumphs.”) And there are gorgeous and often terrifying illustrations to help you along your way, in keeping with the feel of fantastical adventure stories from Britain’s Imperial age.

The book’s subtitle “A Bit of Fluff” sums it up perfectly. Total silliness and nonsense, but that of the highest quality, and with some quite brilliantly unexpected surprises along the way. Although the adaption for TV was eventually abandoned, it is easy to imagine it alongside the other shows Gatiss is involved with. And this is only the first of the trilogy - I can’t wait to find out what happens in the next two.

Read this book. Read it now.

“My Dear Watson…”

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 15:22:21 +0100

“My Dear Watson…”

I had limited camera capabilities, but the entire museum was...

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 15:18:59 +0100

I had limited camera capabilities, but the entire museum was wonderful, and if you ever get the chance to go, you absolutely should.

The desk and books of Sherlock Holmes

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 15:16:40 +0100

The desk and books of Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes Museum, at 221B Baker St, London

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 15:13:35 +0100

Sherlock Holmes Museum, at 221B Baker St, London

Original photo described as: “Mrs Pankhurst being arrested...

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 12:43:43 +0100

Original photo described as: “Mrs Pankhurst being arrested outside Buckingham Palace in 1914.”

More things I found: A cutting of this cartoon about the...

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 12:30:00 +0100

More things I found: A cutting of this cartoon about the Suffragettes, dated March 27th, 1912.

The bookcase in my room is like a time capsule of all the YA...

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 12:10:49 +0100

The bookcase in my room is like a time capsule of all the YA novels that shaped me from the age of about 11.

I was going to start packing it up for the big moving day, but now I don’t want to.

"From fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine: she read all such works as heroines..."

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 01:59:38 +0100

“From fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine: she read all such works as heroines must read to supply their memories with those quotations which are so serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives.”

- Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (via chamaeri)

egnirc: Clover Keys (by Brian Cerveny)

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 19:46:36 +0100

egnirc:

Clover Keys (by Brian Cerveny)

olympialetan: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Penguin...

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 14:01:10 +0100

olympialetan:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Penguin edition.

prettybooks: (by clarescupcakes.co.uk)

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 00:14:24 +0100

prettybooks:

(by clarescupcakes.co.uk)

"Young girls are told you have to be the delicate princess. Hermione taught them that you can be the..."

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:14:22 +0100

““Young girls are told you have to be the delicate princess. Hermione taught them that you can be the warrior.””

- Emma Watson (via laksjdhfg09)

Sherlock Holmes, 'A Case of Identity'

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 20:28:00 +0100

“My dear fellow,” said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.”

Pocket Penguins series - 70th Anniversary.

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 14:04:17 +0100

Pocket Penguins series - 70th Anniversary.

Photo

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 14:00:33 +0100

Still packing up books for moving day. I forget how cool my...

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 13:57:32 +0100

Still packing up books for moving day. I forget how cool my house is sometimes.

Photo

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 13:53:15 +0100